Abstract

An ion gated transistor is shown to have an analog electronic channel resistance that is dependent on the ion concentration in a solid state device. The ionic transistor made from a common battery cathode material, LiCoO2, is investigated for use in devices that exploit the interaction between ions and electrons with applications in low-power neuromorphic computing and non-volatile memory. The majority of the resistance change in LiCoO2 occurs close to the stoichiometric point, and thus, nanoscale LiCoO2-based ionic electronic devices are expected to consume minimal power and avoid structural phase changes leading to improved reliability.

Received 04 December 2012Accepted 04 May 2013Published online 30 May 2013

Acknowledgments:

This work was supported in part by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Contract No. HDTRA-1-12-1-0031, an Office of Naval Research Basic Science Grant No. N00014-10-1-0219, a National Science Foundation MRSEC DMR 0820382, and by the Department of Defense (DoD) through the National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) Program.